Tainted Page 5

  “Then maybe you should have thought first before you allowed my clothes to dissolve.”

  “Oh, I’ve thought long and hard on that, Grace. Don’t doubt that. But not anywhere else but in the privacy of a very secluded room like we shouldn’t be in right now. And not on my sparring floor.”

  These thoughts were extremely fun to entertain, but couldn’t go anywhere until we were married. So! “Changing the subject, if I’m serious about the ladies learning to spar and lead off on the bow targets, will you overstep me and tell me no.” I could’ve been smarter about the way I said that. He stiffened and stayed quiet for a full minute.

  “No, you can have that if that is what you need. Just do it after dark so the men have their time and no distractions. Dissembling yourself from me will not work another time. Is that a compromise you can live with?”

  “Why, my future husband surprises me at all times of the day.” I snuggled closer and concentrated on the way he felt against me. I wanted him closer.

  I heard you. This surprised me. Maybe he was concentrating hard like I have too.

  “How?”

  “Emotions speak louder than words it seems.” He lifted my hair and kissed the back of my neck. My ear. Oh, this was new. I was lost within seconds as he moved around. “Don’t ever take your clothes off like that again unless you’re married to me and in the privacy of our bedroom.” His voice was a little too possessive. Love it!

  “That’s not quite nice of you.” I pulled away. Our bedroom?

  “I mean only that I can’t handle it and don’t care for anyone else to see what’s mine. I will have to be married to you the next time so I can take you right out of there and…” he trailed off and kissed the corners of my neck moving on to my shoulder. I got the picture. We both seemed to refrain from ever putting it into words. As if it was more sacred to talk after we were married. Maybe that was the woman in me. And maybe the man just couldn’t control himself if he said it aloud. I have a long way from understanding my man, but I’ve eternity to do it.

  Chapter Five

  consume- v. strong and urgently felt; overpowering

  I found Ian and Pike “chatting” the following morning at the edge of the garden. They were discussing Kin, that much I could tell. I cleared my mind hoping to keep hidden and stayed put by the ivy wall and listened. Pike was suspicious that someone was tracking him. I gathered enough from the conversation that he didn’t know who and it made me wonder again why Pike was inside the court so much lately. I thought he didn’t come all the way in.

  “No longer private.” He nodded his head to Ian in my direction. Good morning, Beautiful.

  Guarding, I rubbed my charm heavily remembering that it was there hating that I let him in somehow. I thought I was getting better at it.

  “Pike,” I nodded to him attempting nice. The previous day’s events were playing once more in my brain as I watched him.

  He nodded back. From now on, the charm, if needed, would be in my hand at the sight of him.

  “Any news?” I asked.

  “Nothing but Kinsler wandering aimlessly by your old home. Can’t decide what he wants.” Pike looked at me, reaching into me with his eyes. He was intending to assume I would get his double meaning in the words he chose. Wrong!

  Ian cleared his throat and I finally let go of Pike’s gaze wondering if he had some kind of side power of hypnotism or something. Pike raised an eyebrow no doubt hearing me.

  “He’s up to something. We just have to find out what. No need to worry yet, Grace,” Ian shared.

  “I think there is, but…” I started but tossed a look back at Pike.

  “But, Pike will stay on this. He can handle this.” Ian’s eyes were hinting at something else, but what that was, I didn’t have the foggiest. I wanted to pursue it, but thought of another tactic with all the leading off and no one answering kind of conversation to avoid telling me things.

  “Very well. Pike is good at handling things.” I nodded at both of them. I turned and left and went to go find Danella releasing myself from the Pike spell that seemed to consume me lately.

  ***

  “Danella, I want you to find out what Pike knows about Kin. They are not telling me something. For my own good, I presume. To protect me, I presume. But this is my mother and father. I want to know what they aren’t telling me for my own good.” I waved my fingers in the air.

  “But miss. I can’t. It’s traitorous.”

  “Immune. I’m the queen and my…’protectors’ are keeping me too well protected from even the Intel needed to protect my parents.”

  “But my lady…”

  “No. Go!” I growled sternly.

  Danella bowed and left.

  She returned only minutes later as I worked on the tangles my hair acquired from the day. The wind was howling something terrible since yesterday. I don’t remember any weather since I’d been here until the last few days.

  “Well?”

  “I’m deathly afraid to tell you, my lady.”

  “Immune, remember? Just spill.”

  With reluctance, Danella kept her eyes closed and said as fast as she could, “Kinsler has men all around your house. There are twelve in all. Two are staying on the back porch. Pike is weary of one of them being a rebellious one because Kin ordered to remove some of the plants and destroyed some property in the process. Pike fears they will move soon but I don’t know that meaning.”

  So he kept it from me because he only thinks he might move. Move what and where? It was enough to come into the court to tell Ian. Not that he seemed to leave court lately but everywhere I was. Maybe I could look myself.

  “Thank you. I trust you will be silent and I as well.”

  Danella nodded, but weariness filled her head with dread no doubt thinking me as the queen might just be the downfall of the court.

  I headed to my room, gathered my dagger, changed into my traveling attire including the horrid armor Ian insisted upon because he would insist if he knew where I was going, and set out to the edge of parents’ property line. I traveled alone. Ian would flip when he found out, but I had to know.

  The spring night was cool, but fresh in a scent and languor, quiet like a slow rain, and the opposite of the windblown morning. As I traveled, I wondered where the strange weather went and how it disappeared so easily. Like on command. I moved quickly keeping low to not attract unwanted attention. I didn’t have time to waste if I wanted to return before I was noticed missing. The dagger in my side stayed firmly in my grasp. My mouth was dry, but anticipation kept my tongue flickering side to side in nervousness. These are my parents and I wanted to protect them.

  I was close enough now I watched every direction for movement. As I inched closer to my house, my eyes darted to the sound of spit flying from my left. My hearing was good, but not trained. I forced myself to stand as a statue so my body would feel my surroundings and search for the source. Ian had taught me to close my eyes and feel the movement in the forest. He’d made me do it at times when there was nothing, and times when even the slightest flutter of a birds’ wings could be heard above. We’d done this as far back as fifth grade on the playground at recess. Still, I had to close my eyes to do it.

  I eased a bit closer to the “spitter” and heard it again. There were two of them. I could just make out two Nym shaped figures standing on the tree line close to the gazebo around two hundred feet to my left. One of them was as tall as me. I wanted to get closer, but saw someone really tall and broad like a football player in the light of my backyard to the right just below my window balcony. KIN!

  He stopped dead in his tracks sensing my careless thoughts. I slid my hand to the charm and stayed perfectly still tossing only my eyes slightly back to the two at my left. A slight breeze sent a stench of horrid body odor back over before I registered Kin through my nose.

  No one was moving. Me included.

  I watched as Kin looked to my balcony, out in my direction, towards the shed, back to the k
itchen, and back to me. I could see my parents sitting in the kitchen through the white curtained window seat. My eyes watered at the attempt to remain so still and I had to close them to keep from letting them leak everywhere. I watched him walk back to the side of the neighbor’s house where he stopped and nodded at the nearest “whoever” standing with his paired buddy by the edge of where the trampoline used to sit. They were watching my parents.

  I couldn’t just stand in wait, so I turned and started to retreat before I did something rash and stupid. My eyes caught something out of place as I peeled them wider across the backyard I’d grown up in. I’d catch anything out of place in my backyard. Ian and I had spent more time there than inside the house. My eyes searched for what was severed from my childhood oasis. The jasmine vines. They’d been clipped and balded to nothing but stems. My eyes wandered the yard. Nothing else was touched. I quickly assessed that the jasmine was also missing from the trellis climbing to my balcony, kitchen windows, and gazebo and most likely gone from the front of the house too. My mother loves them. Why would she cut them down? Kin. Why would he?

  I had taken three steps towards my destination when the famous “twig breaking” triggered a sound at the scariest of moments like in a horror movie from beneath my own foot. I looked back slowly to see the two goons on the edge of the woods heading in my direction and took off. Not slowly at all! Kin would know now.

  I almost made it when one of the two made ground on me and sidestepped my footing by the frog rock. I turned fast with the dagger, felt the slice hit the target, and swung back around to almost enter the Seelie Court domain.

  “Wait! Please!”

  I stopped myself falling against some type of moss or plant or something that left a lingering scent. A quick glance gave me the answer I already knew. JASMINE! I was distracted enough by it, I noticed that it lined the entire entrance to the court and then some. It was everywhere. I probably shouldn’t have but I turned slowly, my empty dagger hand still raised and bloody. I saw that the blood belonged to the Nym standing beside Kin. It was stuck in his arm. I didn’t speak because I was assessing my options.

  “I won’t hurt you.” Kin pulled the dagger out of the dude and held it up to me slowly holding the bloody sharp edge toward his chest. He cleaned it on his pants leg and handed it back. I didn’t move anything or lower the dagger but did decide I could throw myself into the court entrance if needed. He watched it as I gripped the hilt and leaned back.

  “I just want to talk.”

  Why? I only had seconds, if that, before Ian or Pike would show up.

  “Because I want you to understand why I acted that way all those years. I needed too.”

  “Listening. Talk!” He can hear me. I looked quickly to my wrist seeing my bracelet missing. He relaxed his stance only a little and held up my bracelet. My mouth opened little but enough to give me away.

  “I fought off too many malcontents to save you. I know that I wasn’t always that nice to you, but sometimes I just couldn’t seem to get you to understand any other way.” His mouth drew up into a smile unlike the cruel way he usually did. His large size was intimidating enough.

  “By being cruel?”

  “Your little boyfriend wouldn’t let me near you,” he growled. Rude, but right! “I just wanted a chance with you.”

  This was getting really weird.

  He misconstrued my facial expression as a softening look and asked me, “Was I rude in the early years?”

  “Kin, pudding in kinder, my braids in second, scissors in third, cafeteria in fourth—“

  “Okay, but I was just trying to get your attention,” his deep voice masqueraded as the big softie type but I knew better. Maybe he is nicer somewhere deep, deep, deep inside the rough exterior. “Not really strange. I only wanted you to realize that I need you and still do. That.you.were.mine.first.”

  What is he talking about? All this MINE business is wearing on me. MEN! Are we werewolves here? Is he going to hide me from the pack? Mark me?

  “Oh, I’d love to mark you as my own. Are you saying you’re willing?”

  I had no idea how he might MARK ME, but all my paranormal reading material about werewolves suggested something a little too blush worthy for me to imagine right now. I shook my head vigorously and tightened my lips up to hide my dripping sarcasm from his ears and mine.

  Kin’s injured guard tapped his shoulder. Another guy stood with them who I missed arriving to our powwow, but said aloud that our time was up. I freaking recognized him even in Fey get up gear. Guessing I was accustomed to seeing the less obvious nowadays I was now at Pam's date, the college guy named David.

  “Kin, your words are tainted. Deception is your first and only name. I could no more understand your motives than own all the tea in China.”

  His face fell with my honesty. Well, maybe he should try it sometime. Honesty that is.

  Kin’s head snapped around looking at the entrance of my court, “I’d better go. Thank you, Grace. I only wanted you to listen.”

  And he was gone. And the David guy too.

  I’d held my breath for longer than should have and only let it out when I saw nothing would follow me into the court. With a quick pace, I replaced my dagger and practically ran for my rooms but Danella was at the entrance to greet me with her head held in anguish and regret. “My lady, I’d have never told you so if I’d known what course you’d take.”

  “All is well.”

  “No, it isn’t, my lady.” She stared at me. “Ian is a better guardsman than that. You give him no credit. He knew the second you were gone.”

  He did? “How?” My inner idiot meter knocked my head against the door twenty times to knock the sense back in there, meanwhile angel Grace was swatting my hand with a ruler.

  Danella was almost appalled by the amount of unfaithfulness I was displaying. I seem to disappoint everyone lately. “Pike! It’s his job to know where you are.”

  I hadn’t counted on Pike being able to capture my thoughts from that far. Or to hear aloud that Pike’s job was to “watch me”, but it made sense now. He was told to, that’s how. And was that why he is here at court?

  Don’t underestimate your people, Grace. Danella was trying to be nice about this.

  “Fine. How long till Ian is in here?” I asked Danella the loyal.

  “Already here.” His voice came from the dark corner by the entrance and far away from my bedroom door. He’d been there when I arrived and threw the knife, but I ran right past. Danella slipped away leaving me alone with my mighty protector. I turned fast guarding myself as if still standing with Kin. Ian’s eyes were dark. His hands were fisted shut. Sweat dripped from his chiseled, stubble shaded chin. He was unquestionably mad. No, mad didn’t cover what I saw in his eyes. He was Frankenstein himself, bolts coming loose and steam flowing strong out the ears. But very sexy fuming like this!

  You have no amulet, my lady. Guard your thoughts unless you want to hear the river I want to release into your mind. He shouldn’t, but he loved being able to talk to me this way now. My emotions were keeping me open and clear and Ian was using complete concentration reign me in. So much for him not reading my thoughts like we thought.

  Why not do this all the time? Save your voice! I offered folding my arms. I needed to stand my ground but sarcasm inside your own head was a wee bit harder to get across. What river would you release?

  “You’re not ready for that yet,” Ian said too calm and collectively, shoulders squared. His eyes seeing every little detail of what my mind wasn’t saying but my body was. He knew I was affected by him.

  I was there. At the ceremony. And when you were born. I’m glad you chose our court.

  Why are you telling me this? “If you’d not keep things from me, I’d be better informed before I do something you don’t approve of.” Ian didn’t answer back to me so I guessed he was about to switch back to speaking aloud. I noticed his body shrunk a little in exhaustion, his fists opening. Does it tire him to force th
e talking in our heads...or chasing after me?

  Stormed with pain his eyes never left mine, “Protection, Grace. You are the queen of the Seelie Court who should not go gallivanting about where the enemies lurk. You are a queen that shouldn’t compromise the entire court by perishing for a simple curiosity. We all know what happened to the cat, as you so often ponder. A queen needs to stop and think about her court and its best interests, not chase the mouse. A queen will lose the trust of her people should she—"

  “Trust? You’re one to talk. You’ve both promised me trust, but still you treat me like I can’t handle things. You are so busy trying to keep me “protected” that you’ve left me sitting with the dunce hat walking around my “people” as if I haven’t a care in the world. I can’t protect them if I don’t know how. Don’t tell me what I’m not doing until you’re prepared to admit what you’re not doing with this little charade of egging me on. You say you’ll include me one minute, and then the next you and Pike are plotting without me. And then you mess with my mind and I just get all confused around you. You consume me and I can’t see around you, like I’m stuck in a glass wall for the few seconds while you capture your prey.” I fumed back at him.

  He didn’t aim back at this little tirade, but breathed in deeply closing his eyes telling me it was something he didn’t want to hear.

  “You can’t leave alone again.” He stood expressionless and stepped closer. His mouth twitched with annoyance. He avoided the dodging secrets from me again.

  “Fine.” I didn’t move, paralyzed when another step came my way.

  His face was an inch from mine. His hand touched my cheek. My breathing was ragged, my chest rising fast. I forget to stay mad when his lips parted just so and tilted my head to fit his hand. Then...I turned away. When I turned back, he was gone.

  Chapter Six

  virtue- n. a quality considered morally good or desirable in a person 2. chastity

  I fell on the bed and cried refusing to leave my room till lunch was called. By then my eyes had lost their puffiness and I changed and headed to the table. Ian never came. We’d never really had a fight of this caliber. In reality it wasn’t a fight really, since few words had been exchanged. But not seeing him to face the problem had me guessing he’s so mad he’s just going to ignore me. Progress, none! I returned to my rooms and this time refused dinner. When I bedded down for the night, I told Danella to stay outside my room and to not let anyone in. I wanted to be totally alone like I should be. Punish myself for what I did, but not because it bothered him. Because he will not let me help due to his protective cover. My mind went through a million things, a long list of need to do’s.